^ V— -*T 


COLUMBIA  LIBRARIES  OFFSITE 

HEALTH  SCIENCES  STANDARD 


HX00077097 


WILLIAM  OSLER 

THE  MAN 

EY 

FA^LVEY  CUSHIN'3 

?  0  ;~  ^'i      M  AS3. 


'  -?-^ 


[EDICAL  ' 


Columbia  WLnihzt&ity 
in  tfje  €itp  of  J^eto  Horfe 

College  of  ipfjps'ictan*  anb  burgeons 


Reference  Htbrarp 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Open  Knowledge  Commons 


http://www.archive.org/details/williamoslermanOOcush 


A  snapshot  of  Sir  William  Osier  taken  in  the  Bodleian  Library  in  1909,  holding 
open  Sir  William  Stirling-Maxwell's  copy  of  Vesal's  Tabulae  Anatomicae. 


WILLIAM  OSLER,  THE  MAN1 
By  HARVEY  CUSHING 

BOSTON,    MASS. 

WHATEVER  may  be  said  of 
Sir  William  Osier  in  days 
to  come,  of  his  high  posi- 
tion in  medicine,  of  his 
gifts  and  versatility,  to  his  contemporaries, 
love  of  his  fellow-man,  utter  unselfishness, 
and  an  extraordinary  capacity  for  friend- 
ship will  always  remain  the  characteristics 
which  overshadow  all  else.  Few  so  eminent 
and  so  industrious  come  in  return  to  be  so 
widely  beloved  for  their  own  sake.  Most  of 
us  do  well  with  what  Stevenson  advises — a 
few  friends  and  those  without  capitulation 
— but  Osier  had  the  God-given  quality  not 
only  of  being  a  friend  with  all,  high  or  low, 
child  or  grown-up,  professor  or  pupil,  don 
or  scholar,  but  what  is  more,  of  holding  such 
friendships  with  an  unforgetting  tenacity — 
a  scribbled  line  of  remembrance  with  a 
playful  twist  to  it,  a  note  of  congratulation 
to  some  delighted  youngster  on  his  first 
publication,  the  gift  of  an  unexpected  book, 
an  unsolicited  donation  for  some  worthy 
cause  (and  giving  promptly  he  gave  doub- 
ly), a  telegram  to  bring  cheer  or  consolation, 
an  article  to  help  a  Struggling  journal  to  get 
a  footing,  a  cable  such  as  his  last  on  the  day 
of  his  operation  to  his  old  Hopkins  friends, 
which  was  given  by  them  to  the  press  for 

'An  amplification  ofa  note  on  sir  William  Osier  *  bich  appc  ired 

anonymously  in  tlu-  Boston  I  unnu-  Tran$oipt,  January  3,  i';j<>. 

1 


the  benefit  of  countless  others  who  shared 
their  own  anxiety — all  this  was  character- 
istic of  the  man,  whose  first  thoughts  were 
invariably  for  others. 

He  gave  much  of  himself  to  all,  and 
everyone  fortunate  enough  to  have  been 
brought  in  contact  with  him  shared  from 
the  beginning  in  the  universal  feeling  of 
devotion  all  had  for  him.  This  was  true  of 
his  patients,  as  might  be  expected,  and  he 
was  sought  far  and  wide  not  only  because 
of  his  wide  knowledge  of  medicine  and  great 
wisdom,  but  because  of  his  generosity,  sym- 
pathy and  great  personal  charm.  It  was 
true  also — and  this  is  more  rare — of  the 
members  of  his  profession,  for  whom,  high  or 
low,  he  showed  a  spirit  of  brotherly  helpful- 
ness untinctured  by  those  petty  jealousies 
which  sometimes  mar  these  relationships. 
"Never  believe  what  a  patient  may  tell  you 
to  the  detriment  of  another  physician"  was 
one  of  his  sayings  to  students,  and  then  he 
would  add  with  a  characteristic  twist — 
"even  though  you  may  fear  it  is  true"; 
and  he  was  preeminently  the  physician  to 
physicians  and  their  families,  and  would  go 
out  of  his  way  unsolicited  and  unsparingly 
to  help  them  when  he  learned  that  they  were 
ill  or  in  distress  of  any  kind.  And  no  one 
could  administer  encouragement,  the  essen- 
tial factor  in  the  art  of  psychotherapy  in 
which  he  was  past  master,  or  could  "soothe 
the  heartache  of  any  pessimistic  brother," 
so  effectively  and  with  so  little  expenditure 
of  time  as  could  he. 

During  one  of  his  flying  trips  to  America 
2 


some  years  ago,  as  always  with  engagements 
innumerable,  he  took  time  to  go  from  Balti- 
more to  Boston  for  the  single  purpose  of 
seeing  a  surgical  friend  with  literary  tastes 
who  for  some  months  had  been  bed-fast 
with  a  decompensated  heart;  and  James 
Mumford,  for  it  was  he,  always  said  that 
this  unannounced  visit  was  what  put  him 
on  his  feet  again.  I  knew  of  his  doing  the 
same  thing  for  an  Edinburgh  physician  of 
whose  illness  he  heard  by  chance  just  as  he 
was  leaving  the  steamer,  in  Liverpool.  He 
was  due  for  an  address  before  the  British 
Medical  Association  in  Oxford,  but  without 
hesitation  he  took  the  first  tram  to  the 
north  and  managed  to  get  back  to  Oxford 
just  in  time  for  the  address,  blithe  and  gay 
as  though  he  had  not  spent  two  nights  on  a 
train.  Indeed  he  was  invariably  punctual 
and  somewhat  intolerant  of  tardiness  in 
others.  "Punctuality  is  the  prime  essential 
of  a  physician — if  invariably  on  time  he  will 
succeed  even  in  the  face  of  professional 
mediocrity." 

The  universal  devotion  he  engendered 
was  no  less  true  of  those  with  whom  lie 
came  in  contact  outside  his  profession,  and 
his  points  of  contact  through  his  varied 
interests  were  innumerable.  Man,  woman  or 
child — and     in    children    I  !v    he    de- 

lighted as  they  did  in  him     fell   from  the 
firsi  momenl  of  meeting  a  rare  fascination 
in  his  personality.  In  a  poem,  "Books  and 
the    M.ip."    dedicated    to  Osier  and  i 
before  the  Charaka  Club,   March  .}.  i 
Weir  Mitchell  recalls  in  these  three  \< 


their  first  meeting  in  London  twenty  years 
before. 

Do  you  perchance  recall  when  first  we  met — 
And  gaily  winged  with  thought  the  flying  night 
And  won  with  ease  the  friendship  of  the  mind, — 
I  like  to  call  it  friendship  at  first  sight. 

And  then  you  found  with  us  a  second  home, 
And,  in  the  practice  of  life's  happiest  art 
You  little  guessed  how  readily  you  won 
The  added  friendship  of  the  open  heart. 

And  now  a  score  of  years  has  fled  away 
In  noble  service  of  life's  highest  ends, 
And  my  glad  capture  of  a  London  night 
Disputes  with  me  a  continent  of  friends. 

On  Osier's  seventieth  birthday,  just 
passed,  the  medical  world  set  out  to  do  him 
honor — unknown  to  him,  for  he  was  one  to 
elude  public  testimonials  and  did  not  suffer 
adulation  gladly,  quick  as  he  was  to  give 
praise  to  others.  For  this  occasion  many  of 
his  former  pupils  and  colleagues  in  Balti- 
more wrote  a  number  of  papers  containing 
the  sort  of  things  rarely  said  or  written 
about  a  man  or  his  work  until  after  his 
death.  Among  these  papers  is  one  by  his 
present  successor  there,  on  "Osier  the 
Teacher"  which  deserves  quoting  in  full, 
but  which  after  an  enunciation  of  his  traits 
ends  with  this  picture  of  the  man  as  his 
hospital  associates  and  students  remember 
him. 

If  you  can  practice  consistently  all  this,  .  .  . 
and  then,  if  you  can  bring  into  corridor  and  ward 
a  light,  springing  step,  a  kindly  glance,  a  bright 
word  to  everyone  you  meet,  arm  passed  within 
arm  or  thrown  over  the  shoulder  of  the  happy 
4 


student  or  colleague;  a  quick,  droll,  epigrammatic 
question,  observation  or  appellation  that  puts  the 
patient  at  his  ease  or  brings  a  pleased  blush  to  the 
face  of  the  nurse;  an  apprehension  that  grasps  in  a 
minute  the  kernel  of  the  situation,  and  a  memory 
teeming  with  instances  and  examples  that  throw 
light  on  the  question;  an  unusual  power  of  suc- 
cinct statement  and  picturesque  expression,  exer- 
cised quietly,  modestly  and  wholly  without 
sensation;  if  you  can  bring  into  the  lecture-room 
an  air  of  perfect  simplicity  and  directness,  and, 
behind  it  all,  have  an  ever-ready  store  of  the  most- 
apt  and  sometimes  surprising  interjections  that 
so  light  up  and  emphasize  that  which  you  are 
setting  forth  that  no  one  in  the  room  can  forget 
it;  if  you  can  enter  the  sick-room  with  a  song  and 
an  epigram,  an  air  of  gaiety,  an  atmosphere  that 
lifts  the  invalid  instantly  out  of  his  ills,  that  pro- 
duces in  the  waiting  hypochondriac  so  pleasing  a 
confusion  of  thought  that  the  written  list  of  ques- 
tions and  complaints,  carefully  complied  and 
treasured  for  the  moment  of  the  visit,  is  almost 
invariably  forgotten;  if  the  joy  of  your  visit  can 
make  half  a  ward  forget  the  symptoms  that  it 
Jancied  were  important,  until  you  are  gone;  if  you 
can  truly  love  your  fellow  and,  having  said  evil  of 
no  man,  be  loved  by  all;  if  you  can  select  a  wife 
with  a  heart  as  big  as  your  own,  whose  generous 
welcome  makes  your  tea-table  a  Mecca;  ...  if 
you  can  do  all  this,  you  may  begin  to  be  to  others 
the  teacher  that  "the  chief"  is  to  us. 

Little  wonder  that  he  was  idolized  by  the 
students.  This  was  natural  enough,  bill  lie 
in  turn  took  pains  to  know  them  by  name, 
gave  up  an  evening  in  each  week  to  bug 
sivr  groups  of  them  ;it  Ins  home,  learned 
them  as  individuals  and  never  forgot  them. 
And    it     was    the    same    with    his    hospital 

juniors,  whether  they  happened  to  be  mem- 
bers of  his  own  staff  or  nol .  I}i  i 


some  papers  I  find  this  characteristic  un- 
dated note  of  circa  1898,  concerning  an 
early  effort  which  had  been  submitted  to 
him.  It  is  scribbled  in  pencil  on  a  bit  of  paper. 

A.  A.  1.  report!  I  have  added  a  brief  note  about 
the  diagnoses.  I  would  mention  in  the  medical  re- 
port the  name  of  the  House  Physician  in  Ward 
E  &  the  din.  clerk,  &  under  the  surgical  report  the 
name  of  the  House  Surgeon  who  had  charge.  We 
are  not  nearly  particular  enough  in  this  respect 
and  should  follow  the  good  old  Scotch  custom. 
Yours,  W.  O. 

This  habit  of  giving  credit  to  everyone  who 
may  have  been  brought  into  contact  with  a 
case  was  most  characteristic  of  the  man. 
Even  his  "Text-Book  of  Medicine"  con- 
tains so  many  references  to  places  and 
people  that  it  led  to  these  amusing  verses 
taken  from  a  long  poem  by  a  student  which 
appeared  in  the  Guy's  Hospital  Gazette  some 
years  ago : 

For  why  should  it  matter  to  usward, 

If  Osborn  has  sent  you  a  screed, 

Or  why  have  you  sought  a  brief  mention  of  Porter, 

Or  Barker,  or  Caton,  or  Reed? 

I  sometimes  am  seized  with  a  yearning, 

In  Appleton's  ledger  to  look, 

What  fun  it  would  be  if  we  only  could  see 

Whether  each  of  them  purchased  the  book! 

But  when  of  the  names  we  are  weary 
(Directories  muddle  the  brain), 
We're  provided  by  you  with  philosophy  too 
In  the  trite  Aphorisms  of  Cheyne. 
Geography  also  you  teach  us, 
Until  I  came  under  your  thrall, 
I  don't  mind  confessing  that  Conoquenessing 
I  never  had  heard  of  at  all. 

6 


But  with  all  his  abundant  learning,  his 
high  spirits,  his  playful  wit  and  love  of  a 
practical  joke,  he  was  incapable  of  offending. 
"If  you  can't  see  good  in  people  see  noth- 
ing." Charitable  to  a  degree  of  others' 
foibles,  even  when  he  had  to  oppose  or  to 
fight  in  public  for  a  principle  he  did  so  with- 
out leaving  hurt  feelings.  This  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  the  great  influence  he  exercised 
and  the  universal  admiration  felt  for  his 
character. 

Probably  no  physician  during  his  life  has 
been  so  much  quoted  nor  so  much  written 
about,  and  the  chief  periods  of  Osier's 
eventful  and  migratory  career  are  too  well 
known  to  need  more  than  brief  mention. 

His  father,  a  clergyman,  Featherstone 
Lake  Osier,  with  his  wife,  Ellen  Pickton,  left 
Falmouth,  England,  in  1837  and  settled  in 
the  Province  of  Ontario.  William,  the  eighth 
of  their  nine  children,  several  of  whom  have 
become  highly  distinguished  in  Canadian 
affairs  and  in  the  law,  was  born  July  12, 
1849,  at  Bond  Head.  A  graduate  of  Trinity 
College,  Toronto,  in  1868,  he  took  his 
medical  degree  four  years  later  at  McGill 
University;  then  after  two  years  of  study 
abroad,  returning  to  Montreal  in  1874,  he 
leapt  into  prominence  as  the  newly  ap- 
pointed Professor  of  the  Institutes  of  Medi- 
cine of  his  alma  mater.  A  professor  at 
twenty-five,  in  a  chair  which  covered  the 
teaching  of  pathology  and  physiology!  And 
there  followed  ten  years  of  active  scientific 

work    which    laid    1  he    foundation    lor    his 

subsequent  eminence  in  his  profession* 


In  1884  he  accepted  a  position  in  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  five  years 
later  was  called  to  Baltimore  as  Professor 
of  Medicine  in  the  newly  established  Johns 
Hopkins  Medical  School.  There,  marrying 
in  1892  Grace  Revere,  the  widow  of  Dr.  S. 
W.  Gross  of  Philadelphia,  he  remained  for 
sixteen  years.  It  was  the  Golden  Age  of  the 
Johns  Hopkins  during  the  presidency  of 
Daniel  C.  Gilman,  and  during  this  period 
through  his  writing  and  teaching  Osier 
became  recognized,  one  may  say  without 
exaggeration,  as  the  most  eminent  and 
widely  influential  physician  of  his  time. 

Many  calls  to  other  positions  during  these 
years  met  with  refusal  until  in  1904,  when 
fifty-six  years  of  age,  he  accepted  the  Regius 
Professorship  of  Physic  at  Oxford,  the  most 
honored  post  in  medicine  that  the  United 
Kingdom  can  offer.  Though  this  position  on 
a  royal  foundation  centuries  old  (Henry 
VIII,  1546)  is  a  sinecure  and  was  doubtless 
accepted  to  give  leisure  for  literary  pur- 
suits, he  was  not  one  to  take  advantage  of 
ease.  The  succeeding  fifteen  years  in  Oxford 
represent,  if  possible,  a  period  of  even 
greater  activity  and  more  far-reaching  influ- 
ence in  many  directions  than  the  fifteen 
years  at  the  Johns  Hopkins,  where  despite 
his  absence  his  stimulating  spirit  of  work 
for  work's  sake  still  reigns. 

Established  in  a  delightful  home  where 
he  and  Lady  Osier  continued  to  dispense 
their  unbounded  hospitality,  so  much  so 
that  13  Norham  Gardens  came  to  be  known 
as  the  "Open  Arms,"  elected  a  Fellow  of 


Christ  Church,  Woolsey's  College,  put  upon 
the  Hebdomadal  Council,  a  small  body 
which  takes  the  initiative  in  promulgating 
all  the  legislature  of  the  University  before 
its  submission  to  Convocation,  he  was  soon 
appointed  one  of  the  curators  of  the  Bod- 
leian Library,  and  elected  a  Delegate  of  the 
University  Press.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
but  that  these  latter  positions  gave  him  his 
greatest  extra-professional  pleasure  and  sat- 
isfaction during  his  Oxford  life,  and  to  the 
Library  and  the  Press  he  gave  largely  of  his 
time. 

But  Oxford,  with  its  hoary  traditions,  its 
strict  adherence  to  the  humanities,  its  com- 
fortable spirit  of  laissez  jaire,  had  drawn 
into  its  net  a  restless  spirit  who  knew  the 
modern  outside  world,  and  he  was  responsi- 
ble for  such  changes  even  in  the  established 
procedures  of  the  Bodleian  as  were  thought 
impossible  of  accomplishment,  if  indeed 
modern  library  methods  were  really  desir- 
able. But  a  man,  particularly  when  ener- 
getic, unselfish  and  likeable,  who  could  talk 
Aristotelian  philosophy  with  the  dons  at  the 
high  tabic-  and  at  tin-  same  time  knew 
science  and  the  value  of  [aboratorie 
well  as  libraries,  could  not  but  leave  his 
impression  on  the  ten  centuries,  more  01 

[(         of  Oxford's  habits  and  customs. 

There  were,  indeed,  many  Osiers:  the 
physician,  the  professor,  the  scholar,  the 
author,  the-  bibliophile,  the  historian,  the 
philanthropist,  the  friend  and  companion 
f«  i  young  <>r  old.  Though  no  man  loved  his 

home  mure  nor  kept    its  doors  more  widely 


open  to  the  world,  he  was  in  demand  every- 
where, and  was  eminently  clubable.  Few 
dinners,  of  the  Samuel  Pepys  Club,  the 
Roxburghe  or  the  Colophon  Clubs,  of  the 
inner  circle  of  the  Royal  Society,  of  his 
college,  failed  to  be  enlivened  by  his  pres- 
ence, and  he  had  just  been  made  a  member 
of  the  famous  Johnson  Club,  one  of  the 
oldest  and  most  select  dining  clubs  in 
existence. 

His  Oxford  home,  even  more  than  in 
Baltimore,  had  become  such  a  gathering 
place,  particularly  for  Canadians  and  Ameri- 
cans, that  how  the  scholar  did  his  work 
was  a  mystification  to  many.  An  omniverous 
reader  with  a  most  retentive  memory,  pos- 
sessed of  a  rare  literary  gift  and  with  the 
power  of  immediately  concentrating  on  the 
thing  which  was  to  be  done,  no  matter  what 
had  occupied  his  attention  the  moment 
before  or  was  laid  out  to  be  done  the 
moment  after — these  were  probably  the  ele- 
ments of  his  great  productivity. 

With  it  all  he  was  a  writer  par  excellence 
of  countless  brief  missives — even  the  frag- 
ment pencilled  on  a  postcard  during  his 
outings  and  sent  to  an  unexpecting  friend 
whom  some  incident  had  led  him  to  recall, 
invariably  contained  some  characteristic 
message,  quip  or  epigram  worth  preserving. 
During  a  brief  sojourn  in  Paris  in  the  winter 
of  1908-9,  he  writes: 

I've  just  been  going  through  the  Servetus  Trial 

for  Astrology,  1537.  'Tis  given  in  full  in  du  Bou- 

Iay's  History  of  the  University  of  Paris.  I  wish  you 

could  see  this  library.  I've  wasted  hours  browsing. 

10 


Meanwhile  I've  read  through  six  volumes  of 
Swinburne.  I  did  not  know  before  of  his  Children's 
Poems.  We  are  off  on  the  13th,  first  to  Lyons  to 
see  Symphorien  Champier  and  Rabelais.  We'll 
stop  at  Vienne  to  call  on  Servetus  and  Appolos 
Revoire,  doubtless  the  father  of  the  late  Paul 
Revere. 

He  subsequently  went  down  into  Italy, 
and  some  of  the  readers  oi  a  journal  of 
medical  history  may  like  to  trail  him  by  a 
letter  and  by  some  picture  postcards,  on  a 
quarter  of  which  he  could  squeeze  much  in 
his  fine  writing. 

Cannes. 
A  great  coast.  Such  sunshine.  We  have  been 
here  \Yi  weeks — delighted  with  everything.  This 
is  a  gorgeous  spot.  Where  I  put  the  -+-  is  the  little 
town  of  Gourdron.  They  had  to  get  high  up  on 
account  of  the  Moors.  I  am  thinking  of  settling  at 
Monte-Carlo — they  say  there  is  a  good  opening. 
I  lost  S.25  in  five  minutes  and  then  stopped.  We 
go  to  Rome  on  the  7th.  So  far  as  women  are  con- 
cerned this  is  the  Remnant  Counter  of  Europe.  .  .  . 

.Milan. 
I  forgot  whether  I  wrote  about  the  Vesal 
Tabulae  sex  at  the  San  Marco —  I  think  I  did. 
Splendid  as  illustrating  the  evolution  of  his  knowl- 
edge— also  of  Calcar  as  they  are  very  crude  in 
comparison  with  the  1542.  Nothing  much  in 
Pavia — nothing  in  comparison  with  Bologna  and 
Padua.  Library  good — no  Vesal  items  <>f  moment, 
not  even  the  1543.  A  1st  ed.  of  Mundinus,  but  no 
plates.  I  have  not  lx*en  able  to  locate  a  single 
Mundinus  MS. — I  wonder  where  they  can  be. 
The  Ambrosiana  la-re  is  a  fine  collection.  I  had  5 
original  MSS.  of  Cardan  to  look  over  the  auto- 
biography   is    complete     he    wrote    a    uonderlul 

hand— no  wonder  the  printers  [iked  to  gel  his 
copy.  Hopli  here  has  no  large  stock — th<>'  the  bctl 
publisher  in  Italy.  Love  to  the  bairns.   .   .   . 

11 


Rome. 

Rome  at  last!  Wonderful!  What  pigmies  we  are 
in  comparison  with  those  old  fellows.  So  much  to 
see  and  everything  intensely  interesting.  I  have 
not  yet  been  to  the  Vatican  Library.  Splendid 
bookshops  here.  I  have  already  got  some  treasures. 
Redi  and  Valisneri — splendid  editions.  So  glad  of 
your  letter  today  (i  ith).  Love  to  the  darlings. 


Florence. 
Yours  came  this  morning — two  days  late  for 
personal  attention  to  your  Lang  commission.  I 
was  recalled  to  Rome  (stranded  American)  and 
I  sanctified  my  fee  by  buying  three  copies  of  Vesal. 
2nd  edition,  fine  one  for  myself.  A  first  for  McGill 
(300  fr.  was  stiff  but  it  goes  for  500!)  and  another 
for  the  Frick  Library.  I  was  sorry  to  miss  the 
Rhazes — the  Brussels  Library  secured  it.  I  have 
two  copies  also  of  the  Venice  edition  of  the  Vesal. 
Have  you  one?  I  will  send  your  list  to  Lang.  They 
are  Germans  and  know  their  worth.  I  bought  one 
Imperialis  for  the  sake  of  the  Vesal  picture — they 
have  another  which  I  will  ask  them  to  send.  The 
Gilbert  facsimile  is  good  and  the  Berengarius. 
Did  I  tell  you  I  got  the  original  Gilbert  at  the 
Amherst  sale?  I  got  a  beauty  Aristotle  1476  de 
partibus  animalium  at  Laschers.  This  place  is  of 
overwhelming  interest — libraries,  pictures,  etc.  The 
Laurentian  library  is  just  too  splendid  for  words 
— 7000  chained  mss.,  all  in  the  putei  designed 
by  Michael  Angelo.  I  have  a  photo  of  the  end  of 

one  for  you.  The  book  shops  are  good.     B 

one  of  the  best  in  Europe.  He  has  500  incunabula 
on  the  shelves,  a  Silvaticus — a  cuss  of  no  moment 
— of  1476,  a  superb  folio,  one  of  the  first  printed  in 
Bologna — fresh  and  clean  as  if  printed  yesterday 
and  such  a  page!  but  .  .  .  asks  1500  francs.  His 
things  are  wonderful.  But  really  auction  sales  (are) 
is  the  only  economical  way  to  get  old  books.  The 
dealers  have  to  put  up  their  prices  to  pay  interest 
on  the  stock.  I  am  sorry  not  to  have  seen  the  Junta 
12 


Galen — there  are  5  Venice  editions  of  that  firm! 
By  the  way  the  Pitti  picture  of  Vesal  is  very  fine 
— I  am  looking  for  a  photo — the  beard  is  tinged 
with  grey.  .   .   . 

Re  Alcmeon,  see  Gomperz  Greek  Thinkers — he 
was  the  earliest  and  greatest  of  the  Magna  Graeca 
anatomists.  We  go  from  here  to  Bologna,  Padua, 
Venice,  &c.  I  have  a  set  of  Votives  for  the  Faculty 
— terra-cotta  arms,  legs,  breasts,  yards,  eyes, 
ears,  fingers — which  the  votaries  hung  in  the 
^Esculapian  temples  in  gratitude  to  the  God — 
the  modern  R.  C.  ones  are  wretched  (tin)  imita- 
tions. 

I  am  in  a  state  of  acute  mental  indigestion  from 
plethora — it  is  really  bewildering — so  much  to  see 
and  to  do. 

Naples. 
Thus  far  on  the  trip.  Glorious  place — glorious 
weather.  I  wish  you  were  mil.  I  dreamt  of  you  last 
night — operating  on  Hughlings  Jackson.  The 
great  principle  you  said  in  cerebral  surgery  was 
to  create  a  commotion  by  which  the  association 
paths  were  restored.  You  took  off  the  scalp — like 
a  p.  m.  incision — made  a  big  hole  over  the  cerebel- 
lum and  put  in  a  Christ  Church — whipped  cream 
— wooden  instrument  and  rotated  it  rapidly. 
Then  put  back  the  bone  and  sewed  him  up.  You 
said  he  would  never  have  a  fit  again.  I  said  sol- 
emnly, I  am  not  surprised.  H-J.  seemed  very 
comfortable  after  the  operation  and  bought  3 
oranges  from  a  small  Neapolitan  who  strolled  into 
the  Queen-Square  amphitheatre!  I  have  been 
studying  my  dreams  lately  and  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  just  one-third  of  my  tim<-  b  spent 
in  an  asylum — or  should  be! 

Two  years  later,  in  191 1 ,  he  made  a 
winter's  trip  to  Egypt  and  as  usual  was 
enthusiastic  about  all  he  saw  and  did.  Here 

is  a  somewhat  longer  letter. 

1:; 


S.  S.  "Seti" 
Feb.  22nd,  191 1. 

Such  a  trip!  I  would  give  one  of  the  fragments 
of  Osiris  to  have  you  two  on  this  boat.  Everything 
arranged  for  our  comfort  and  the  dearest  old 
dragoman  who  parades  the  deck  in  gorgeous  attire 
with  his  string  of  99  beads — each  one  representing 
an  attribute  of  God!  We  shall  take  about  10  days 
to  the  Dam  (Assouan),  580  miles  from  Cairo. 
Yesterday  we  stopped  at  Assiut  and  I  saw  the 
Hospital  of  the  American  Mission — 200  beds, 
about  20,000  out-patients.  Dr.  Grant  is  in  charge 
with  3  assistants  and  many  nurses.  I  found  there 
an  old  Clevelander  .  .  .  who  had  fallen  off  a 
donkey  and  broken  his  ribs,  and  on  the  8th  day 
had  thrombosis  of  left  leg.  He  was  better,  but  at 
76  he  should  have  stayed  at  home.  The  Nile  itself 
is  fascinating,  an  endless  panorama — on  one  side 
or  the  other  the  Arabian  or  the  Libyan  desert 
comes  close  to  the  river,  often  in  great  lime  stone 
ridges,  200-800  ft.  in  height;  and  then  the  valley 
widens  to  eight  or  ten  miles.  Yellow  water,  brown 
mud,  green  fields  and  grey  sand  and  rocks  always 
in  sight;  and  the  poor  devils  dipping  up  the  water 
in  pails  from  one  level  to  the  other.  We  had  a 
great  treat  yesterday  afternoon.  The  Pasha  of 
this  district  has  two  sons  at  Oxford  and  their 
tutor,  A.  L.  Smith,  a  great  friend  of  his,  sent  him 
a  letter  about  our  party.  He  had  a  secretary  meet 
us  at  Assuit  and  came  up  the  river  to  Aboutig. 
We  had  tea  in  his  house  and  then  visited  a  Manual 
Training  School  for  100  boys,  which  he  supports. 
In  the  evening  he  gave  us  a  big  dinner.  I  wish  you 
could  have  seen  us  start  off"  on  donkeys  for  the 
half  mile  to  his  house.  It  was  hard  work  talking 
to  him  through  an  interpreter,  but  he  was  most 
interesting — a  great  tall  Arab  of  very  distinguished 
appearance.  A  weird  procession  left  his  house  at 
10  p.m. — all  of  us  in  eve.  dress,  which  seemed  to 
make  the  donkeys  very  frisky.  Three  lantern 
men,  a  group  of  donkey  men,  two  big  Arabs  with 
14 


rifles  and  following  us  a  group  of  men  carrying 
sheep — one  alive!  chickens,  fruit,  vegetables, 
eggs,  etc.,  to  stock  our  larder.  We  tie  up  every  eve 
about  8  o'clock,  pegging  the  boat  in  the  mud. 
The  Arabs  are  fine:  our  Reis,  or  pilot,  is  a  direct 
descendant,  I  am  sure,  of  Rameses  II,  judging 
from  his  face.  After  washing  himself  he  spreads 
his  prayer  mat  at  the  bow  of  the  boat  and  says 
his  prayers  with  the  really  beautiful  somatic 
ritual  of  the  Muslem.  The  old  Pasha,  by  the  way, 
is  a  very  holy  man  and  has  been  to  Mecca  where 
he  keeps  two  lamps  perpetually  burning  and 
tended  by  two  eunuchs.  He  is  holy  enough  to  do 
the  early  morning  prayer  from  4  to  6  a.m.  with 
some  2000  sentences  from  the  Koran.  It  is  a  great 
religion — no  wonder  Moslem  rules  in  the  East. 
Wonderful  crops  up  here — sugar  cane,  cotton, 
beans  and  wheat.  These  poor  devils  work  hard 
but  now  they  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
they  are  not  robbed.  We  are  never  out  of  sight  of 
the  desert  and  the  mountains  come  close  on  one 
side  or  the  other.  Today  we  were  for  miles  close 
under  limestone  heights — 800-1000  feet,  grey  and 
desolate.  The  river  is  a  ceaseless  panorama — the 
old  Nile  boats  with  curved  prows  and  the  most 
remarkable  sails,  like  big  jibs,  swung  on  a  boom 
from  the  top  of  the  masts,  usually  two  and  the 
foresail  the  larger.  I  saw  some  great  books  in  the 
Khedival  Library — monster  Korans  superbly  illu- 
minated. The  finer  types  have  been  guarded 
jealously  from  the  infidel,  and  Moritz,  the  librarian, 
showed  me  examples  of  the  finer  forms  that  arc- 
not  in  any  European  libraries.  Then  he  looked  up 
a  reference  and  said — "  You  have  in  the  Bodleian 
three  volumes  of  a  unique  and  most  important 
16  cent,  arabic  manuscripl  dealing  with  Egyptian 
antiquities.  We  have  the  other  two  volumes. 
Three  of  the  five  WOt  taken   from    Egypt    in  the 

17th  oentury.  We  \\<nil<l  give  almost  anything  to 
get  the  others."  And  then  he  showed  me  two  of 
the  most  sumptuous  Korans,  about  3  It.  in  height, 
every  page  ablaze  with  gold,  which  he  said  they 


would  offer  in  exchange.  I  have  written  to  E.  W. 
B.  Cyclops  Nicholson  urging  him  to  get  the 
curator  to  make  the  exchange,  but  it  takes  a 
University  decree  to  part  with  a  Bodley  book! 
Curiously  enough  I  could  not  find  any  early 
Arabian  books  (of  note)  in  medicine,  neither 
Avicenna  or  Rhazes  in  such  beautiful  form  as  we 
have.  I  have  asked  a  young  fellow  at  school  who 
is  interested  to  look  up  the  matter.  We  shall  have 
nearly  a  week  in  Cairo  on  our  return.  I  went  over 
the  Ankylostoma  specimens  with  Looss  and  the 
Bilharzia  with  Ferguson — both  terrible  diseases 
here  (not  the  men!) — the  latter,  a  hopeless  one 
and  so  crippling.  There  were  a  dozen  or  more 
bladder  cases  in  the  hospital  and  the  polypous 
cholitis  which  it  causes  is  extraordinary.  They 
must  spend  more  money  on  scientific  medicine. 
Looss  has  very  poor  accommodations.  The  labora- 
tories are  good,  but  the  staffs  are  very  insufficient. 
The  hospital  is  impossible.  I  am  brown  as  a 
fellah — such  sun — a  blaze  all  day.  We  reached 
Cairo  in  one  of  those  sand  storms,  the  air  filled 
with  a  greyish  dust  which  covers  everything  and 
is  most  irritating  to  eyes  and  tubes.  This  boat  is 
delightful — five — six  miles  an  hour  against  the 
current,  which  is  often  very  rapid.  The  river  gets 
very  shallow  at  this  season,  and  is  fully  eighteen 
feet  below  flood  level.  I  have  been  reading  Herodu- 
tus,  who  is  the  chief  authority  now  on  the  ancient 
history  of  Egypt.  He  seems  to  have  told  all  of  the 
truth  he  could  get  and  it  has  been  verified  of  late 
years  in  the  most  interesting  way.  Tomorrow  we 
start  at  8  for  the  Tombs  of  Denderah — a  donkey 
ride  of  an  hour.  We  are  tied  up  to  one  of  Cook's 
floating  barge  docks, squatted  out  side  is  a  group  of 
natives  and  the  Egyptian  policeman  (who  is  in  evi- 
dence at  each  stopping-place)  is  parading  with  an 
old  Snider  and  a  fine  stock  of  cartridges  in  his  belt. 
P.  S.  24th.  Have  just  seen  Denderah  and  the 
Temple  of  Hathor.  Heavens,  what  feeble  pigmies 
we  are!  Even  with  steam,  electricity  and  the 
Panama  Canal. 

16 


What  fun  to  travel  with  a  spirit  like  this, 
and  he  rarely  went  anywhere  without  hav- 
ing two  or  three  youngsters  on  his  trail. 
The  summer  his  Oxford  decision  was  finally 
made  two  of  us  crossed  with  him,  indeed 
shared  the  same  small  stateroom,  and,  as  I 
recall  it,  were  not  permitted  to  pay  our 
share.  We  learned  something  of  his  methods 
of  work,  and  had  we  not  been  on  this  inti- 
mate basis  he  would  have  appeared  to  us, 
as  to  the  other  voyagers,  as  the  most  care- 
free individual  aboard.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
he  was  always  the  first  awake,  and  we 
would  find  him  propped  up  with  pillows 
reading  or  writing,  and  his  bunk  was  so 
cluttered  with  books  during  the  whole  trip 
that  there  was  scant  room  for  its  legitimate 
occupant.  He  breakfasted  while  we  dressed, 
and  then  went  on  with  his  morning's  work 
while  the  rest  of  us  wandered  about  the 
deck  with  good  intentions  but  usually  with 
an  unread  book  under  our  arms.  At  luncheon 
he  would  appear;  the  remainder  of  the  day 
was  a  continuous  frolic.  We  roped  in  the 
ship's  doctor  and  got  up  a  medical  society 
of  the  physicians  aboard.  I  find  that  I  have 
preserved  the  program  which  he  arranged. 

MEDICO-NAUTICAL  STUDIES 

By  Members  of  the  North  Atlantic  Medical  Societ] 
Edited  by 
Dr.  Francis  Vf.rdon 
of 

S.  S.  "Campaniu" 
Perpetual  I'm   ident 

'I  be  volume  containing  tboul  ■even  bandied  peges  will  Ik- 

issinil  from  the  Utopian  Press,  Thos.  More  A  inti* 

Pritr  i'l. 

17 


CONTENTS 


I.  A  study  of  the  'sea-change' 

mentioned  in  the  "Tem- 
pest"   as   a   key   to   the 
Shakespeare-Baconian 
controversy 

II.  The   minimal   lymph  pres- 

sure in  the  ampullae  as  a 
cause  of  sea-sickness 

III.  The  otoconial  rattle  in  sea- 

sickness. A  study  in  aural 
ausculatory  physics 

IV.  On   Broadbent's  theory   of 

steady  dextral  cerulean 
vision  as  a  preventative  in 
the  disease 

V.  A     demonstration     of    the 
'    centripedal  course  of  the 

neuro-electrical  vagal 
waves  of  Rosenbach,  with 
ten  charts 

VI.  A  comprehensive  investiga- 

tion on  marine  phosphenes 
with  their  relation  to 
latitude  and  longitude 

VI I.  A  statistical  inquiry  into  the 

sequelae  of  sea-sickness 
in  ten  thousand  consecu- 
tive cases  treated  success- 
fully with  specifics 

VIII.  On  the  chemistry  of  aqua- 

verdin.  A  new  gastro-cu- 
taneous  sea  pigment 

IX.  A  comparative  study  of  the 

effects  of  prolonged  sea- 
sickness on  (i)  drinkers 
(2)  abstainers 

X.  The  aesthetics  of  sea-sick- 

ness, with  six  photo-grav- 
ures  from  sketches  by 
Sargent  and  Abbey 

XI.  Salt  as  the  cause  of  appendi- 

citis— results  of  a  collec- 
tive investigation  show- 
ing the  extraordinary  fre- 
quencjr  of  the  disease  after 
sea  voyages 

XII.  A  sociological  inquiry  upon 

the  influence  of  sea  travel 
on  the  birth  rate  of  differ- 
ent communities 


By  James  Tyson 
By  Harvey  Cushing 
By  Maitland  Ramsay 

By  William  Osier 

By  T.  McCrae 
By  J.  A.  Andrews 

By  Francis  Verdon 
By  Campbell  Howard 

By  T.  G.  Roddick 

By  Henry  Barton  Jacobs 

By  Herbert  Bruce 
By  Jas.  Stewart 


All  this  was  doubtless  very  frivolous  but 
he  spent  no  idle  hours,  and  getting  enjoy- 
ment out  of  trifles  at  the  proper  time  and 
making  others  participate  was  as  character- 
istic of  the  man  as  his  hours  of  industry 
when  sitting  down  to  the  day's  work. 

18 


Few  scholars  have  received  more  recog- 
nition for  their  work,  few  have  received  so 
many  honors  nor  carried  them  so  well.  With 
it  all  he  preached  and  practiced  humil- 
ity. To  quote  from  one  of  the  essays  in 
"Aequinimitas": 

"In  these  days  of  aggressive  self-assertion, 
when  the  stress  of  competition  is  so  keen  and  the 
desire  to  make  the  most  of  oneself  so  universal 
it  may  seem  a  little  old-fashioned  to  preach  the 
necessity  of  this  virtue,  but  I  insist  for  its  own 
sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  what  it  brings,  that  a  due 
humility  should  take  the  place  of  honour  on  the 
list." 

His  charm  as  a  writer  had  much  to  do  with 
his  great  success  as  a  teacher,  and  his 
bibliography,  covering  a  period  of  49  years, 
is  most  extensive — 730  titles,  including  his 
collected  essays  and  addresses,  having  been 
assembled  by  Miss  Blogg  in  commemora- 
tion of  his  last  birthday.  There  is  a  great 
range  of  subjects  beside  those  pertaining  to 
medicine  and  medical  history.  His  "Text- 
Book  of  Medicine,"  of  which  nearly  200,- 
000  copies  have  been  printed,  kept  con- 
stantlytunder  revision, translated  into  French, 
German,  Spanish  and  Chinese  and  now 
entering  on  its  ninth  edition,  was  written 
during  his  early  years  in  Baltimore  and 
since  1892  has  been  read — nay  devoured — 
by  countless  medical  students  and  graduates 
alike.  It  remains  probably  the  most  used 
and  most  useful  book  in  medicine  today. 

As  is  well  known,  his  attachment  to 
young  men  and  his  fondness  for  literary 
allusion   once   got   him    into   trouble    by   a 


quotation  from  "The  Fixed  Period,"  one 
of  Anthony  TroIIope's  rarer  novels,  which 
probably  few  have  read  and  which  is  diffi- 
cult to  obtain,  as  the  present  writer  knows 
to  his  cost.  Thus  the  remark  about  chloro- 
form, really  TroIIope's,  was  made  in  the 
course  of  his  farewell  address  to  his  devoted 
Baltimore  colleagues  and  friends,  many  of 
whom  were  over  60,  an  age  he  was  approach- 
ing himself.  And  he  would  have  been  the 
last  to  have  offended  them.  It  was  an 
address  full  of  deep  feeling  for  all  that  he 
was  soon  to  leave  behind,  but  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  press  who  were  present 
singled  out  this  one  remark  to  be  headlined. 
The  sad  feature  of  this  episode  is  that  it 
stands  as  one  of  the  best  examples  of  the 
heartlessness  of  the  press  when  an  oppor- 
tunity offers  itself  for  copy,  no  matter  who 
may  be  sacrificed.  On  the  eve  of  his  depar- 
ture from  America  the  notoriety  probably 
hurt  him  considerably,  though  he  wisely 
made  no  reply,  not  even  at  the  great  ban- 
quet which  was  given  him  at  the  time  by 
the  profession  of  the  country,  on  which 
occasion  Weir  Mitchell  presented  him  with 
the  rare  Franklin  imprint  of  Cicero's  "De 
Senectute."  He  knew  when  to  keep  his 
tongue  as  with  a  bridle. 

His  IngersoII  Lecture  on  "Science  and 
Immortality"  is  a  good  example  of  his 
charming  literary  style,  and  there  is  an 
interesting  story  of  how  he  came  to  accept 
the  lectureship,  which  others  must  tell.  It 
was  given  late  in  1904,  a  few  months  before 
his  transference  to  Oxford,  when  he  was  in 

20 


great  demand  everywhere  and  by  everyone 
and  could  find  no  time  for  its  preparation. 
Finally,  a  few  days  before  the  date  of  the 
occasion,  he  slipped  away  one  night  to  New 
York,  hid  in  the  University  Club,  and 
wrote  the  lecture  in  a  single  morning.  It  is 
so  full  of  allusion  that  to  appreciate  it  fully 
one  must  read  it  with  the  Bible  in  one  hand, 
the  "Religio  Medici"  in  the  other,  and  "In 
Memoriam"  near  by.  In  this  he  gives  his 
own  confessio  fidei  to  the  effect  that,  as 
Cicero  had  once  said,  he  would  rather  be 
mistaken  with  Plato  than  be  in  the  right 
with  those  who  deny  altogether  the  life 
after  death. 

At  seventy  in  the  forefront  of  activities 
innumerable,  of  unusual  physical  vigor  and 
buoyancy,  coming  of  a  long-lived  race, 
William  Osier's  death  may  be  regarded  as 
a  consequence  of  the  war.  No  human  being 
loathed  strife  more  than  he;  few  had  been 
as  successful  in  avoiding  it  in  any  guise. 
This  characteristic  made  him  suffer  unduly 
from  the  very  outbreak  of  the  conflict.  He 
nevertheless  threw  himself  into  it  with 
characteristic  energy  in  connection  with  the 
War  Office,  on  committees,  in  hospitals,  and 
as  a  senior  consultant  to  the  Forces  he 
received  a  Colonel's  commission.  The  Brit- 
ish reply  to  the  famous  German  professional 
note  issued  early  in  the  war  was,  I  believe, 
written  by  him  and  shows  the  man's  spirit 
and,  as  always,  his  charity.  The  opening 
and  closing  paragraphs  may  be  quoted : 

We  see  with  regret  tlu*  names  of  many  i 

man    profeSSOTS    and    men    of    sciriuv,  whom    We 
21 


regard  with  respect  and,  in  some  cases,  with 
personal  friendship,  appended  to  a  denunciation 
of  Great  Britain  so  utterly  baseless  that  we  can 
hardly  believe  that  it  expresses  their  spontaneous 
or  considered  opinion.  We  do  not  question  for  a 
moment  their  personal  sincerity  when  they  express 
their  horror  of  War  and  their  zeal  for  "the  achieve- 
ments of  culture."  Yet  we  are  bound  to  point  out 
that  a  very  different  view  of  War,  and  of  national 
aggrandizement  based  on  the  threat  of  War,  has 
been  advocated  by  such  influential  writers  as 
Nietzsche,  von  Treitschke,  von-Bulow,  and  von 
Bernhardi,  and  has  received  widespread  support 
from  the  press  and  from  public  opinion  in  Ger- 
many. This  has  not  occurred,  and  in  our  judgment 
would  scarcely  be  possible,  in  any  other  civilized 
country.  We  must  also  remark  that  it  is  German 
armies  alone  which  have,  at  the  present  time, 
deliberately  destroyed  or  bombarded  such  monu- 
ments of  human  culture  as  the  Library  at  Louvain 
and  the  Cathedrals  at  Rheims  and  Malines.  No 
doubt  it  is  hard  for  human  beings  to  weigh  justly 
their  country's  quarrels;  perhaps  particularly 
hard  for  Germans,  who  have  been  reared  in  an 
atmosphere  of  devotion  to  their  Kaiser  and  his 
army,  who  are  feeling  acutely  at  the  present  hour, 
and  who  live  under  a  Government  which,  we 
believe,  does  not  allow  them  to  know  the  truth. 
Yet  it  is  the  duty  of  learned  men  to  make  sure  of 
their  facts.  .  .  . 

The  German  professors  appear  to  think  that 
Germany  has,  in  this  matter,  some  considerable 
body  of  sympathizers  in  the  Universities  of  Great 
Britain.  They  are  gravely  mistaken.  Never  within 
our  lifetime  has  this  country  been  so  united  on 
any  great  political  issue.  We  ourselves  have  a  real 
and  deep  admiration  for  German  scholarship  and 
science.  We  have  many  ties  with  Germany,  ties 
of  comradeship,  of  respect,  and  of  affection.  We 
grieve  profoundly  that,  under  the  baleful  influ- 
ence of  a  military  system  and  its  lawless  dreams 
of  conquest,  she  whom  we  once  honoured  now 
22 


stands  revealed  as  the  common  enemy  of  Europe 
and  of  all  peoples  which  respect  the  Law  of  Na- 
tions. We  must  carry  on  the  war  on  which  we  have 
entered.  For  us,  as  for  Belgium,  it  is  a  war  of 
defence,  waged  for  liberty  and  peace. 

His  only  child,  Revere,  an  Oxford  under- 
graduate and  his  father's  devoted  playmate, 
who  too  hated  strife,  on  coming  of  military 
age  underwent  training  as  a  field  artillery 
officer,  was  commissioned  Lieutenant, 
served  with  his  battery  with  great  credit 
for  a  year  in  France,  and  was  mortally 
wounded  in  action  September  2,  191 7,  in 
the  Ypres  salient.  Thus  the  great  grandson 
of  our  Paul  Revere  who  roused  Lexington 
and  Concord  lies  under  a  wooden  cross  in 
Flanders  in  the  corner  of  a  foreign  field  that 
is  forever  England.  By  a  strange  coincid- 
ence, a  group  of  American  officers,  who 
knew  what  grief  this  would  bring,  were 
there  to  bare  their  heads  at  his  Last  Post. 

From  this  loss,  particularly  heartrending 
to  one  of  his  nature,  his  father  never  fully 
recovered.  Though  unchanged  in  his  out- 
ward dealings  with  people  and  affairs,  he 
suffered  much  from  insomnia  and  his  health 
was  so  undermined  that  he  became  an  easy 
prey  to  an  old  enemy,  bronchial  attacks. 
He  finally  contracted  pneumonia  and  died 
suddenly  on  December  29th  from  one  of  its 
complications  which  had  made  an  operation 
necessary. 

At  the  time  of  the  farewell  dinner  in  New 
York  in  1905,  Dr.  Osier  confessed  under  the 
emotion  of  his  reply  to  the  tribute  that  had 
been  paid  him,  thai  to  few  men  had  happi- 

23 


ness  come  in  so  many  forms  as  it  had  come 
to  him;  that  his  three  personal  ideals  had 
been,  to  do  the  day's  work  well,  to  act  the 
Golden  Rule  in  so  far  as  in  him  lay,  and 
lastly  to  cultivate  such  a  measure  of  equa- 
nimity as  would  enable  him  to  bear  success 
with  humility,  the  affection  of  his  friends 
without  pride,  and  to  be  ready  when  the 
day  of  sorrow  and  grief  came  to  meet  it 
with  the  courage  befitting  a  man. 

During  these  last  two  years,  though  he 
must  have  felt  at  times,  as  did  his  anxious 
friends,  that  possibly  his  span  was  run,  his 
spirit  was  unflagging.  His  son,  though  essen- 
tially an  out-of-doors  boy,  through  living 
in  an  atmosphere  of  books  acquired  biblio- 
philic  tastes  of  his  own  and  had  formed,  like 
Harry  Widener  at  Harvard  and  Alexander 
Cochrane  at  Yale  a  valuable  collection  of 
imprints  of  the  Tudor  and  Stewart  periods. 
To  this  collection,  Sir  William  subsequently 
made  many  additions  from  his  own  care- 
fully chosen  books  and  manuscripts.  He 
and  Lady  Osier  presented  the  collection  to 
the  Johns  Hopkins  undergraduates  as  a 
memorial  to  their  son,  to  become  something 
like  the  Elizabethan  Club  at  Yale,  a  rallying 
point  for  young  college  men  with  literary 
and  bookloving  tendencies.  He  worked,  too, 
at  every  odd  moment  to  complete,  so  far  as 
possible,  the  unique  catalogue  of  his  own 
lifetime  collection  of  treasures  relating  to 
the  history  and  literature  of  medicine,  rang- 
ing from  a  medical  tablet  from  Sardanapolis 
through  a  series  of  priceless  manuscripts 
and  incunabulas  to  the  essential  contribu- 

24 


tions  to  medicine  in  their  originals  of  our 
own  time. 

This  incomparable  collection  with  its 
elaborate  catalogue,  which  is  not  a  mere 
enumeration  of  volumes  but  is  largely  bio- 
graphical, indeed  autobiographical  in  char- 
acter, is  destined  for  the  library  of  McGill, 
where  he  held  his  first  chair  in  medicine. 
Sir  William  as  may  not  be  generally  known 
had  lately  been  offered  but  had  refused  the 
position  as  the  head  of  that  great  Canadian 
university.  He  also  received  a  year  ago  the 
amazing  offer  from  both  political  parties 
that  he  stand  as  fusion  candidate  for  the 
Oxford  seat  in  Parliament,  but  refused  on 
the  ground  that  it  should  in  justice  be 
offered  to  Asquith. 

As  President  of  the  Classical  Association, 
one  of  his  most  notable  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  his  last  address,  on  "The  Old  Hu- 
manities and  the  New  Sciences"  was  given 
before  that  body  in  Oxford,  May  16th,  19 19. 
That  a  scientist  and  physician  should  be- 
come president  of  the  most  eminent  group 
of  British  scholars,  whose  aim  is  to  "pro- 
mote the  development  and  maintain  the 
well-being  of  classical  studies"  would  seem 
incongruous  did  one  not  know  the  man 
whose  Greek  Testament  always  stood  by 
the  "Rcligio  Medici"  at  his  bedside.  Dis- 
claiming that  he  had  "ever  by  pen  or  tongue 
suggested  the  possession  of  even  the  tradi- 
tional small  Latin  and  less  Greek,"  in  this 
remarkable  address  given  in  his  most  bril- 
liant style  he  makes  a  plea  for  no  human 


letters    without    natural    science    and    no 
science  without  human  letters. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  address  should 
be  colored  by  frequent  allusions  to  the  war 
and  appeals  for  individual  service  to  the 
community.  Quoting  Plato's  "Republic" 
that"  States  are  as  the  men  are,  they  grow 
out  of  human  characters,"  he  concludes 
with  this  paragraph : 

With  the  hot  blasts  of  hate  still  on  our  cheeks, 
it  may  seem  a  mockery  to  speak  of  this  as  the 
saving  asset  in  our  future;  but  is  it  not  the  very 
marrow  of  the  teaching  in  which  we  have  been 
brought  up?  At  last  the  gospel  of  the  right  to  live, 
and  the  right  to  live  healthy,  happy  lives,  has 
sunk  deep  into  the  hearts  of  the  people;  and  before 
the  war,  so  great  was  the  work  of  science  in  pre- 
venting untimely  death  that  the  day  of  Isaiah 
seemed  at  hand  "when  a  man's  life  should  be 
more  precious  than  fine  gold,  even  a  man  than  the 
gold  of  Ophir."  There  is  a  sentence  in  the  writings 
of  the  Father  of  Medicine  upon  which  all  com- 
mentators have  lingered,  rp>  yap  irapy  4>i\av6po)irLr), 
Trapearu  /ecu  c/>iXorex*'"7 —  the  love  of  humanity 
associated  with  the  love  of  his  craft! — philan- 
thropia  and  philotechnia — the  joy  of  working 
joined  in  each  one  to  a  true  love  of  his  brother. 
Memorable  sentence  indeed,  in  which  for  the  first 
time  was  coined  the  magic  word  philanthropy, 
and  conveying  the  subtle  suggestion  that  perhaps 
in  this  combination  the  longings  of  humanity 
may  find  their  solution,  and  Wisdom — philosophia 
— at  last  be  justified  of  her  children. 

Two  of  Osier's  lay  sermons  to  students 
have  been  published,  in  which  his  own  life 
habits  are  more  or  less  reflected.  In  one  of 
them  given  at  Yale  where  he  was  giving  the 
Silliman  Lectures  in  191 3,  he  offered  "his 

26 


fellow  students"  a  way  of  life — "a  path  in 
which  the  wayfaring  mart  cannot  err,  a  life 
in  day-tight  compartments,  the  main  busi- 
ness of  which  is  not  to  see  dimly  at  a 
distance,  but  to  do  what  lies  clearly  at 
hand." 

In  19 10  "Man's  Redemption  of  Man" 
was  delivered  at  a  service  for  the  students 
at  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  Osier  un- 
consciously chose  as  his  text  from  Isaiah 
what  he  himself  has  been  to  those  who  knew 
him. 

And  a  man  shall  be  as  an  hiding-place 
from  the  wind,  and  a  covert  from  the 
tempest;  as  rivers  of  water  in  a  dry  place;  as 
the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary 
land. 


Paul  B.  Hobbbk,  69-71  Easi  tgrrn  Stkbbt,  Nbh  York 
27 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  date  indicated  below,  or  at  the 
expiration  of  a  definite  period  after  the  date  of  borrowing, 
as  provided  by  the  rules  of  the  Library  or  by  special  ar- 
rangement with  the  Librarian  in  charge. 

DATE  BORROWED 

DATE  DUE 

DATE  BORROWED 

DATE  DUE 

'APR     2  IS 

42 

L3     1948 

C2B(239)M100 

~VW^O^ 


C^s 


Ox%^ 


vK^J 


CXW~  ^ 


